Tag: world

Explore 4,500 British Museum artifacts with Google’s help

The British Museum in London holds an array of beautiful and historically significant artifacts including the Rosetta Stone, which helped historians to understand the ancient hieroglyphics used in Egypt. Today, the organisation is teaming up with Google to bring its various collections online as part of the Google Cultural Institute . The search giant has been developing this resource for years by continually visiting and archiving exhibits around the world. With the British Museum, an extra 4, 500 objects and artworks are being added to its collection, complete with detailed photos and descriptions. Source: Google Cultural Institute

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Explore 4,500 British Museum artifacts with Google’s help

Laser shines through fly’s skin, controls its heart by activating doped cells

Eliza writes, “A researcher from Lehigh University has invented a light-based pacemaker for fruit flies, and says a human version is ‘not impossible.’ The pacemaker relies on the new technique of ‘optogenetics,’ in which light-sensitive proteins are inserted into certain cells, allowing those cells to be activated by pulses of light. Here, the proteins were inserted into cardiac cells so the researchers could trigger the contractions that produce heartbeats.” (more…)

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Laser shines through fly’s skin, controls its heart by activating doped cells

Microlattice: Metal That’s 100 Times Lighter than Styrofoam

While Airbus is figuring out how to stack folks double-height in Business Class, Boeing has been looking into ultralight metallic structures. HRL Laboratories , a research institute that does R&D for Boeing, has developed what they’re calling “the world’s lightest material.” And despite it being 100 times lighter than Styrofoam, it’s actually made out of metal . The researchers achieved this by creating “a lattice of interconnected hollow tubes with a wall thickness of 100 nanometers, 1, 000 times thinner than a human hair, ” resulting in a piece of metal (nickel, at least in the prototypes) that is 99.99% air. Take a look: Direct applications have not yet been settled on, but might include structural reinforcement, shock absorption or heat transfer. Also not clear is whether we’ll see these “microlattices” pop up first in airplanes—or cars. HRL Laboratories also does R&D for General Motors.

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Microlattice: Metal That’s 100 Times Lighter than Styrofoam

Compared To the Rest of the World, US 4G (Unsurprisingly) Sucks

We’re always being told the U.S. is now lagging behind other, more industrious nations in science and technology and basically anything that isn’t spending on the military. How much are we lagging? Here is a depressing graph to help quantify that. Read more…

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Compared To the Rest of the World, US 4G (Unsurprisingly) Sucks

McDonald’s Japan’s straws: designed to mimic experience of nursing at your mother’s breast

According to McDonald’s Japan founder Den Fujita, the design brief for the company’s straws specified that they pass liquid at a rate comparable to the rate at which breast milk flows to a nursing baby, “the speed that produces the most delicious feeling.” “When humans drink something, the speed that produces the most delicious feeling is the speed at which babies nurse…McDonald’s straws are designed so that when used with a shake, the speed will be the same as that of an infant drinking breast milk.” McDonald’s Japan’s straws are designed to mimic the experience of drinking breast milk ( via Neatorama )

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McDonald’s Japan’s straws: designed to mimic experience of nursing at your mother’s breast

The World’s First 3D-Printed Titanium Rib Cage Is a Medical Marvel

It sounds like something straight out of a comic book, but after losing his sternum and part of his rib cage to cancer, a 54-year-old Spanish man received the world’s first 3D-printed chest prosthetic made from lightweight, but incredibly strong, titanium. Read more…

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The World’s First 3D-Printed Titanium Rib Cage Is a Medical Marvel

Here’s the world’s first Ultra HD Blu-Ray player

Samsung has announced the first ( consumer ready ) Ultra HD Bluray player , alongside word that movie studio Fox is already getting its releases ready for the new format. That means 4K movies, yes, but also compatibility for HDR video. Here’s a closer look at the curved player — perfect for that new curved UHDTV, right? Check out all the news from Berlin at our IFA 2015 hub . Filed under: Home Entertainment , Samsung Comments Tags: 4k, hands-on, hdr, hdrvideo, ifa, ifa2015, samsung, uhd, uhdbluray, UltraHighDefinition, video

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Here’s the world’s first Ultra HD Blu-Ray player

The software Stephen Hawking uses to talk to the world is now free

For almost 20 years, Intel has been building technology to help Stephen Hawking communicate with the world — and now the company is making the same software the world renowned physicist uses to write books, give speeches and talk available to everybody . For free. It’s called the Assistive Context-Aware Toolkit (ACAT), and it’s the very same software Intel baked Swiftkey into for Hawkings early last year. Releasing it as open source software was always the plan, giving engineers, developers and researchers a groundwork they can use to create technology that improves the lives of patients with motor neuron disease and other conditions that make using typical computer interfaces impossible. Right now ACAT uses webcam-based face recognition for user control, but Intel says developers can augment it with custom inputs. As is, it still works pretty well: I installed it on a Windows tablet for a quick test run and was able to type simple words by flexing my face muscles in the same manner as Professor Hawking — patiently waiting for the ACAT system to highlight the menu, letter or predictive text word I wanted before moving my cheek. The system can also open documents, browse the web and gives users surprisingly precise cursor control. The base software is available for free on Github , and Intel is hosting a separate site with documentation, videos on features and compatible sensors and a detailed manual to help users get started. If you’re having trouble, you can even contact the project’s lead directly (his email is published on the ACAT website) for help. All in all, the project’s public release is a great step forward to achieving Professor Hawking’s dream of making connected wheelchair and assistive computer technology to every person that needs it. Check out the project’s official Git.Hub page or Intel’s project page at the source link below. [Top image credit: Jason Bye / Alamy] Filed under: Misc , Intel Comments Source: Wired , ACAT , Github Tags: acat, AssistiveTechnology, hawking, intel, stephenhawking

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The software Stephen Hawking uses to talk to the world is now free